Dr. Stubbs points out that, under the Norman kings, "the authority of the sheriff, when he was relieved from the company of the ealdorman, ... would have no check except the direct control of the king" (i. 272); and Gneist similarly observed that "After the withdrawal of the eorl, the Anglo-Saxon shir-gerefa became the regular governor of the county, who was henceforth no longer dependent upon the eorl, but upon the personal orders of the king, and upon the organs of the Norman central administration" (i. 140). And for a period of transition between the two systems, the Anglo-Saxon and the late Norman, the sheriff not only presided, in his court, as its sole lay head, but also in a dual capacity. Dr. Stubbs, it is true, with his wonted caution, does but suggest it as "probable that whilst the sheriff in his character of sheriff was competent to direct the customary business of the court, it was in that of _justitia_ that he transacted special business under the king's writ."[341] But Gneist treats of him, under a separate heading, in his capacity of "royal justiciary" (i. 142). It is from this dual position that there developed, by specialization of function, two distinct officers, the sheriff (_vicecomes_) and the justice (_justicia_). This is the development which, as yet, has been somewhat imperfectly apprehended. The centralizing policy of Henry I., operating through the _Curia Regis_, has, I need hardly observe, been admirably explained by Dr. Stubbs. He has shown how two methods were employed to attain the end in view: the one, to call up certain pleas from the local courts to the _curia_; the other, to send down the officers of the _curia_ to sit in the local courts.[342] In the latter case, the royal officer ("justicia") appeared as the representative of the central power of which the _Curia Regis_ was the exponent. Thus, there were, again, for the county court two lay presidents, but they were now the sheriff, as local authority, and the justice, who represented the central. Such an arrangement was, of course, a step in advance for the Crown, which had thus secured for itself, through its justice, a footing in the local courts.[343] But with this arrangement neither side was able to rest satisfied. Broadly speaking, if I may be allowed the expression, the Crown sought to centralize the sheriff, and to exclude the local element; the feudatories would fain have localized the justice, and so have excluded the central. Thus, before the close of Henry's reign, he had actually employed on a large scale the officers of his _curia_ as sheriffs of counties, and "by these means," as Dr. Stubbs observes, "the king and justiciar kept in their hands the reins of the entire judicial administration" (i. 392).[344] The same policy was faithfully followed by his grandson, a generation later, on the occasion of the inquest of sheriffs (1170), when, says Dr. Stubbs, "the sheriffs removed from their